


The Man on the Moon

by QueenPotatos



Category: Free!
Genre: Dystopia, M/M, Merry Christmas, Space AU, cute aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 13:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenPotatos/pseuds/QueenPotatos
Summary: During the 22th century the majority of the population saw its IQ lowered under 50 thanks to pesticide and chemicals, divided humanity into two groups : the masses and the elites, with one cast trying to rule the other without ruining what is left of their world. But something unexpected will soon change the face of their world : a huge comet is about to destroy everything they know, everyone they love. Rei and Miho are both working at the NASA and their destiny changed when a secret project, "The Man On the Moon" is brought to their attention.Is there really someone living...on the Moon???





	The Man on the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Toilichte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toilichte/gifts).



> Merry Xmas ! I hope you'll like your gift, it's my first time writing ReiGisa ! It was actually really fun :D

## The man on the Moon

 

Miho Amakata shuts down her car’s door and curses as her coat gets stuck inside. She was in the middle of an important dinner, why would her new and inexperienced assistant call her!? Maybe he was part of the masses? Who knows! Why would a stupid human being do in the NASA headquarters anyway? She shows her pass to the watchman and the doors open, then nearly runs to the elevator and goes directly to the 20th floor where her crew is waiting for her.

 

When she walks to the meeting room no one is there to welcome her. She feels her blood blowing into her veins. If this is just a joke...someone’s gonna lose his job at the end of the day. The message she had received was so mysterious _\- ‘I think there might be a problem perhaps you could maybe come_ ?’ it says, which is _not_ something you can ignore when you’re on duty - that Miho has no other choice but to come back at work, after leaving just an hour before.

 

Her whole crew is gathered in the observation room. That’s when her heart stops. Her assistant literally jumps at her side as soon as she arrives. “Chief! You made it quickly. I have-”

 

 “God, what is this thing?” Miho murmurs, her eyes fix on a shining red dot moving very fast on the screens.

 

 “We...don’t know yet. Might be a comet.” He tells her.

 

 “A comet? That fast? Impossible.”

 

Miho adjusts her glasses on her nose and takes the assistant’s seat, her hand moving on the tactile screen fast and precisely.

 

“Have you calculated its trajectory?” She asks him, all the while doing her own measures.

 

“Yes...well...that’s why we called you.”

 

Silent falls in the observatory. All her team members, expect her new assistant, have sinister looks on their faces. All of them. And soon, Miho joins them.

 

“...It’s coming right for us.”

 

According to her calculation the comet is as big as the city of New York and travels fast, extremely fast, and directly toward...Earth.

 

“It’s travelling too fast,” Miho murmurs as she observes the comet’s trajectory, “And it’s shining too much. It’s not...an ordinary comet. We have to warn the authorities immediately.”

 

The following day the President of the United Federations makes a public announcement that Miho and her team watch on the giant screen of their office. Ryuugazaki Rei, her most talented apprentice, frowns when the interview ends.

 

“It is not in my habit to challenge the most important man on Earth, but what was that? His speech didn’t match our datas at all! The situation is way more catastrophic than that!”

 

Miho doesn’t really know what to answer, because of course Rei is right; the scientist inside him saw the approximation and the mistakes adorning the President’s speech, but the human lacks empathy. If Miho’s calculations were right - and, unfortunately, they always are - the comet will enter in collision with Earth in a couple of days, if nothing was done. Of course they can activate the anti missile shield or send a couple of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere as soon as the flying ardent object comes at reach, but Miho can’t refrain the little voice in her head, whispering that this comet is not ordinary and that perhaps it won’t be enough.

 

“If the masse knows about this, what do you think will happen?” She challenges him.

 

Riots, violences and murders before everything explodes. That’s the worst case scenario.

 

“And you think leaving 80% of the population in the dark, unaware of their potential imminent death, is a good alternative?” Rei asks. “Sure their IQ is low, but they are still humans; we cannot deprive them of their last moments with their loved one...if things turn out to be this way.”

 

It seems their vision diverge on that matter. Miho is clever enough not to speak her mind over sterile grounds. Whatever Rei might think the deed is done and nothing can be changed, except if they find a way to destroy this threat, or a way to make it change its trajectory.

 

Ignorance is bliss.

 

She hadn’t been able to have a good night of sleep since the comet appeared.

 

* * *

 

 

Three days have passed and unfortunately Miho’s prediction weren’t proved wrong. The nuclear bomb launched the day before had had no effect on the comet, and worse, it had made it grown.

 

Miho sighs; she is the first person ever to deal with the ugly truth, and there is no way she can find to announce it to everyone. The comet grows stronger, bigger and is coming quicker toward the centre of Earth. If human weapons can’t stop it then, all they have left is defence and prayers.

 

“Amakata, we need to have a serious talk.” Her boss says as she shows him her new measures. They walk to his office where he offers her a glass of whiskey, that she politely refuses.

 

“This is it, this is the end,” he tells her, inhaling the scent of the strong alcohol, “You should take everything that life can still offer.”

 

“It’s not because we’re all going die that I’ll start liking whiskey, Sir. With all you respect.” She adds quickly.

 

“The President is an idiot. He doesn’t know how to deal with the situation. Panic is doomed to take over the world in a couple of hours I’m afraid. The end of the world…” he says, pensive, “I can’t believe I’ll be able to see it. Never thought I would.”

 

“Never wish for it too.”

 

“But there is still hope for humanity, hope for you, Amakata. Please have a sit.”

 

Bemused, Miho walks to the chair in front of her boss’ desk, frowning. What is this all about? How could he think they can save humanity when a giant burning comet is literally going to blow up the entire planet?

 

The boss puts his elbow on the glass table, “Have you ever heard of the man on the moon?”

 

Miho puts her glasses off of her noise, she couldn’t believe what she has just hear. “That’s just a legend,” she starts. “No one can live in space for such a long time.”

 

“And a couple of days ago I would have told you humanity couldn’t be threatened by a mere comet. But here we are, drinking whiskey in the morning.”

 

“Chief, with all your respect, only you are.” Miho rectifies. She honesty doesn’t understand why he had asked to see her so promptly; if she had only a couple of more days to live Miho has a whole season of her favourite show to catch up.

 

“Ah, perhaps you’re right. You have always been a very clever woman, Amakata. The most clever of all! You, on top of everyone, need to be saved.”

 

“What do you mean by that? How?”

 

Even if they lock her out in the deepest bunker that mankind ever created, and even if she survives, Miho will have to face the winter impact where all the plants, the animals, and at least 75% of the population will have died. This was what happened to the dinosaurs before they were extinguished. There was no way around it; humans as we know them are about to disappear, and considering how humanity had turned, that is, in Miho’s eyes, perhaps the best thing that could happen to planet Earth. General IQ had been dropping since the 2000s, and had stubbornly continue to so for a hundred years. In 2117, half of the population’s IQ barely reach 50 and a few portion, the elites which Miho is part of, tries to rule what is left of the world for it not to collapse under the weight of its own stupidity. Wars are routines, violence is everywhere...only a few places are still safe for elites and normal people like Miho and her crew.

 

No, definitely, if humanity is about to disappear then Miho will have no regret.

 

“The mission ‘The Man on the Moon’ started before you were born. The idea was simple; as the nuclear war between the United States and North Korea was getting more and more plausible we anticipated a way to save humanity from a nuclear winter...by sending a couple in space, to live on the Moon with enough food for a decade, and gave them the order to came back only when the food runs out.” Her boss tells her, absentmindedly swirling the whiskey in his glass. “We were finally able to achieve this wild dream a decade ago. The second half was supposed to join the other before the bombing started, but as you know we came within a hair’s breadth of this catastrophe...”

 

Miho couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you telling me there’s someone up there who have been living alone on the Moon for about a decade?”

 

“Absolutely! And we’re gonna finish what we started. To save humanity, you’ll need to join him and come back when the winter impact is over with what is left of our world.” The boss empties his glass and pours him another one. “That way, if there’s no human left when you come back, you’ll be able to repopulate the entire planet, and a new species with your IQ will see the light of the day…”

 

Miho stares, speechless, at her boss’s glass being emptied as if it was just soda. What on Earth is he talking about? He wants to send her to the Moon! And for what? For her uterus!

 

“And your brain,” he adds when she expresses discontent. He, of course, doesn’t get her refusal; he’s giving her the only chance they’ve got to stay alive and not locked down in a bunker for the following years to come.

 

But no man has lived on the Moon for more than a couple of days, who knows what happened to the Man on the Moon? Is he really still alive after all these years?

 

“Think about it Miho. Think about it.” He repeats. “All the preparation are ready, departure is for tomorrow. You’ll just have to push that little button, even a kid could do it. Go to floor F, and asks for Pearson. He’ll show you the way.”

 

Later that day when Miho finally relaxes at home, with her cat on knees and a warm cup of tea in her hands, she reflects on life, on her life. Does she really want to die here? The comet can be seen now. It looks like a red shining star, like Mars on a cloudless night some times, people start to get fascinated. The masse asks questions…

 

Her tea smells so nice, how if she going to live without it once she’ll be on the Moon? Of course, if she dies the result will slightly be the same, but once you’re dead you don’t lack anything anymore, except life and regrets, perhaps.

 

The next day she walks to her office still not knowing what her intention will be at the end of the day. Will she take her chance, or stay on Earth? It’s not until she feels danger and Death, coming from her, than her decision is made.

 

At 9.48 AM on the 18th of September, a first bomb exploded in the NASA main building in Guyane.

 

The ground shakes with the deflagration, which makes Miho fall off her chair. Then it’s the gunshots - a good old AKA47 like in the old movies - and the cries, and then, worse than anything, the silence. People are dead, she can feel it; people, her people, have just been killed.

 

What the hell is happening?

 

Miho runs the risk of glancing through the window to the esplanade in front of the entrance.

 

“The masse!” she murmurs. She recognizes their logo and their chief, fat and ugly but followed by a hundred and a hundred of armed imbeciles. What are they doing here? Have they heard about the comet? Why are they killing everyone in the building? Miho has to flee! But where.

 

_To the Moon!_

 

She runs to the elevator at the far end of the corridor - the X-elevator, the only one going down to Floor F, the deepest level of the building. There, she asks for Pearson as her boss told her. The electronic device controlling access unlocks the door, leaving Miho to guess where her feet should take her. There’s an immense corridor, enlightened by yellow neon and a white line on the floor that appears as soon as she steps in. She walks hastily, and runs even when she can’t see the end of the tunnel. What if they catch her before she reaches the space rocket?

 

Her vision is blurred when she finally arrives. There’s an antechamber before the embarkation pod, with reports and useful knowledge about the Man on the Moon. Miho chooses to ignore them as she undresses and put the spacesuit on, leaving the helmet for the end. Eventually, before entering the pods she catches her breathes, tries to relax and starts to read who her future only friend looks like - or looked like ten years ago. She knows time runs slower on the Moon, but still-

 

She freezes when she saw the name.

 

“..Dammit. That idiot! THAT BLOODY IDIOT!!” She swears.

 

Miho takes off her helmet and runs all the way to the exit. The door opens automatically as she passes through it. She has to find Rei. Out of everyone here, he is the most talented and the most intelligent of her crew - even more than her, even if it pains her to admit his superiority.  Miho runs into corpses, a dozen of men and women are dead, killed by bullet shots and with blood flooding everywhere. She can’t hear any detonation, so she has no idea of where the rebels could be. She can only hope that she won’t be too late.  She takes another elevator, one that goes up and hops up and down until its door opened to the 20th floor. There, she sees people looking at the window, terrified, not knowing what to do. Rei is among them, hopefully.

 

“Rei!” she shouts, and everyone look at her with widened eyes. “Come with me!”

 

“Amakata sensei! What happened? Why are you dressed like that?” Rei asks as she grabs his arm. Miho has forgotten she is still wearing the space suit, but it doesn't have any importance now. She has the save humanity.

 

“Don’t ask unnecessary question! Just follow me!”

 

They run to the elevator again, but alas when the doors open it’s only to reveal five rebels, holding guns and rocket launchers aiming at the ground. By the time they adjust their shot Miho and Rei have gone East, taking the stairs and climbing down the 20th floors to get back on the first.

 

“The masse must have known about the comet!” Rei says as they run. He’s incredible, Miho thinks, he’s still trying to find a logic explanation of the situation when they are literally running for their lives.

 

“So, do you still think telling them was a good idea?” She provokes him.

 

“Of course. They are only angry because we tried to hide it from them, not because of the news itself.”

 

“Are you so sure?”

 

They reach floor F in utter silent. Miho leads the way to the door, and asks for Pearson. When the door opens, she throws Rei inside and locks the door tightly behind him.

 

“What are you doing?” Rei yells, but Miho can barely hear him behind the tough glass.

 

“Saving your ass!” she bites back. And, humanity at the same time.

 

It’s the only solution she found, back inside the antechamber, when she realized the Man on the Moon was, in fact, the Woman on the Moon.

 

She knows she is being cruel with him right now, but she has to. To save humanity. She locks the door being her, and leaves, just like that, without adding a word. She can’t. First, if she had Rei would have understood the gravity of the situation and two, she didn’t have any force left in her legs. How much could she still run before the rebels find her? Not much, she’s afraid. She will die, not like she thought this morning, surrounding by her cats and her favourite tea, but alone in a spacesuit in the middle of a cold and white corridor.

 

But at least, humanity will be saved.

 

* * *

 

The thick glass door, impassable, blocks him the way to freedom, to his mentor, and to life, or at least what remains of it. Ryuugazaki Rei has been part of Amakata’s team for two years now and he has never regretted this decision before today. He could have been a lot of things; a doctor, a scientist, a politician like his father, he could have been so many things...but Rei’s eyes were fixed on the sky, on the stars more precisely, from the very beginning. Life is a mystery, but not greater than the Universe. That’s why he had chosen after a year of travelling the world, that Earth wasn’t enough for him. Rei wants more, he _needs_ more - more to discover, more to know.

 

And now locked in the NASA’s underground, he will never know. How does a planet die? Why? Does antimatter really exist and in which form? Right now Rei only wants to shout and punch the wall, but he knows it will only hurt his fist in the end. Why did Amakata sensei locked him up in here? Will she get him back when the riot is over? What if she doesn’t? The only option he has lies behind his back : a long and unfriendly corridor, with a yellowish light enough to make you look sick after a week at the beach, and the silence.

 

Impatient, Rei paces up and down for a couple of minutes until he feels ants in his pants. Curiosity takes the best of him, always, and he ventures to the corridor. After long minutes of wandering he ends up in a small room, round and cosy, with an open locker and documents set on a yellow sofa - everything was yellowish, he realizes. The documents talk about a space base in the Moon and about its occupant, Hazuki Nagisa, aged  21, the only participant of the ‘Man on the Moon’ project. How incongruous that they chose a woman to take part of that project, considering its naming. In the locker there are several space suits of different size, one is missing. Probably the one Amakata sensei used...why would she have done that? Put the suit on, then coming back for him?

 

On the door at the end of the room there’s a sign. “POD ROOM” it says.

 

That’s when Rei connects all the dots together. The comet, the terrorist, Amakata in a spacesuit, and she looked for him and that name on the report...

She really saved his ass. And so much more.

Rei puts the space suit on and directly goes to the rocket. He sits in front of the control panel and pushes the red button. A gas quickly fills the room and, the next second, Rei loses consciousness, and will only wake up on another planet…

 

* * *

 

Rei opens his eyes only to be welcomed by darkness, and the red flashing light of the control panel’s button. Everything is suddenly quiet, very quiet. He can’t even hear his hand moving on the seat, taking off his belt as he stands up carefully, the only indication that he hadn’t gone deaf during the flight being his heart beating in his ears. The first clue of his successful arrival on the Moon is the gravity. Rei almost flies to the end of the control room - his steps makes him float, or jump very high, that would be more precise - and it’s by a bit of luck that he catches the handle at the first try. He’ll need time to adjust to the gravity, as for the situation he finds himself in. To send him off to the Moon...that was crazy! The craziest idea, but also the most brilliant one - madness and genius are like distant relatives, more often than people think - and that’s an idea that could only have seen the light of day in Amakata’s mind. Rei literally can't stop his feet from moving forward as best as they can, his curiosity dying to see the world - the Earth! - from the surface of the Moon. It has been on top of his lifetime dream; a part of him has never felt happier but on the other hand he wishes his accomplishment would have occurred under better circumstance.

 

There it is. Planet Earth, splendid, still blue and cloudy, so beautiful and unique in the starry sky...can it still be called the sky on the Moon? So many questions come across his head, but Rei can think of it later. He has to study the place, learn where exactly he had landed and find the Japanese spacial base as soon as possible. There is a map of the area download on his helmet’s, the plan appears on his visor; if he goes West there might be a chance to find someone - the woman, he hopes, who had been living here for ten years already. The problem is, mainly, that he doesn’t know where the North stands. He’ll have to guess, there’s no other way!

 

He still can’t hear anything but his breath coming off his mouth. His suit has still a few hours of autonomy - eight hours, that means he can walk four hours before he needs to get back and fill it with air and oxygen. Rei chooses to go straight ahead as he gets his first foot on the Moon’s surface. He catches his breath in front of such beauty. The ground is almost white and the sky so dark, untainted by men’s presence and looks so pure. The craters are real work of art, each one being unique, the sign of life in space - collisions of meteors, scars of time. The surface looks endless, like an ocean of white sands, and Rei feels like he’s alone in the world in the middle of such a work of art, done by Nature and undone by nothing. The sight is too much, constricts something in his chest and makes it difficult to breath properly. Rei takes a minute or two to admire the view and remembers a little bit too quickly that, unfortunately, it’ll be the only thing he’ll see for the next months and that he’ll have all the time he’ll want to admire the Moon or the Earth, and that it can wait. Breathing can’t. Living can’t.

 

His first steps are clumsy and ridiculous, and Rei is really happy no one is there to witness his unceremonious steps. The whole undertaking resembles more of a ugly choreography than a smoothy steps like Rei has seen when Neil Armstrong first did this, which makes him think a little jealous of his ancestor. After a few tries, his steps finally start to look like something decent, which is not by any mean the first of his priority but even in the worst hour Rei puts a real honor in keeping a sense of esthetic. Each jump he takes makes him land a couple of meter away, soundlessly. He’ll have to get used to silence, he guesses; in the void no wave can travel, which mean everything will remain totally silent until he reaches the spatial base.

 

After a couple of minute Rei’s foot lands on something...jelly. On Earth he would have certainly fall on the ground but with the gravity - or, the lack of gravity - he only stays in the air a little longer until he steadies next to where he had first walked. Rei kneels, his eyes looking for anything organic on the sterile ground; there was definitely something pink on the ground. Round, small and pink, with cute antenna and tiny arms, globulus eyes frowning at him and sending him death glares. Rei picks the poor thing off the ground - light as a feather - and stares, flabbergasted, at what seems to be the first alien he has the chance to meet. To think he almost killed it by stepping on it! Poor thing! Of course it looks angry! Of course it would want to revenge! Perhaps then Rei should put it down to study it more before a deadly poison comes out of its cute antenna.

 

He doesn’t hear it coming, but from the corner of his eyes Rei catch something moving, very fast, toward him and the alien. He turns his head, the pink alien still at eye level in his hands, and to his surprise and relief there is none but another space suit running towards them. Another human being, someone he could be able to talk to, someone that could show him the way to the Japanese base. The spacesuit stops centimeters away from Rei.

 

“Hello! Do you speak my language?” He asks, but the person in the suit doesn’t seem to hear- wait, how are they going to communicate in space?

 

Rei doesn’t have the opportunity to think about a solution before the alien is taken from his grip. It looks delighted to be in another pair of arms and a heart appears on what Rei would call its belly - even if, considering the alien looks more or less like a custard, it might not be the best term for describing the alien’s anatomy. It seems the cosmonaut wants to communicate as well, since the tinted screen of the visor disappears to reveal the face of a young man.

 

His eyes are warm and smiling, that Rei is sure of, the man seems happy to see another human being or to have find back the alien, he cannot decide which possibility is the most probable yet. The man has short blond hair and a round face. There are a couple of wrinkles in the corner of his eyes, so Rei assumes that, despite his juvenile appearance, the man is older than he looks.

 

Something he also immediately notices is that he is Japanese too, which would only make thing easier. Rei unveils his face as well, and displays the map he’s got on the visor.

 

“I need to get to the base.” He talks, but for the other the only thing he sees are his lips moving and no sounds at all. The blond guy then leans forward, which makes Rei take a step back, until he understands where his hands are going. There are controls behind the helmet, with what appears to be a radio emitter and receptor.

 

_“...An..Hear...now?”_

 

Rei almost jumps when he hears, for the first time since he arrived, a voice that isn’t his.

 

_“...Try..eak...”_

 

The man’s voice is covered with interferences but Rei easily guesses his demand. “Can you hear me?” he speaks.

 

The man nods, but his reply is still mostly ineligible. _“We’re … the ba... so the con... perfect. ...need to come back... of gas. Thank you...dingou... worried...find is morni…”_

 

When the man turns his heels and walks ahead Rei blindly follows, after all what did he have to lose?

 

“Where are we going?” he demands a couple of minutes later when there’s still nothing but the white line of the horizon awaiting them.

 

_“I’m bringing ...the spatial ba... it Iwatobi. I need to...and then... back to the rocket to un...the dried...brought. Man ...believe you..at long to... I thou...was going..die of bo...”_

 

The transmission is irrefutably better but there are still words Rin can't hear properly. They walk for a good hour before Rei stops in front of a white building. The word ‘Iwatobi’ is written with western letters on top of the door. It opens as the man approaches, and Rei follows him closely.

 

They reach a first depressurisation room and entered a second before the man takes off his helmet, to Rei astonishment - a worry. “Ah! It's good to breathe fresh air again.”

 

The man looks young for someone who has spent ten years on the Moon. His hair is blond and short, his eyes of an unique kind of red, Rei notices, sparkling. The man puts the pinky alien on table in the middle of the lounge and goes for the drawer behind him. He comes back to the alien with a cookie, that it eats hungrily.

 

“There, Gou-chan! Don't be so hasty or it'll go the wrong way!” he whines.

 

“Gou-chan?” Rei repeats, his eyes on the small alien devouring the cake.

 

“Oh, that how I call her. She seems to like it,” the man says, patting her head when she finishes eating. “It's a little bit lonely here so we became friends quickly. Well, I think she befriended me for the food I give her but...I don't really care.”

 

Rei wonders how such a small alien could have digest human food with apparently no bowel at all, but soon he finds out he has more pressing question to ask. “So, where are we?”

 

“Hum? Didn’t they tell you? It's the Japanese spatial Base, Iwatobi. Are you a new member of the crew? That could explain why you are late. I almost ran out of oxygen!”

 

The crew? “What are you talking about?”

 

The man looks back at him, bemused. “The...you don't...you're not here for the provisions, are you?”

 

For the first time Rei realizes the man has been living on the Moon for ten years and has no idea of what is happening on Earth, no idea that the planet and humanity might be enjoying its last hours, no idea of the tragedy that awaits and Rei is going to be the one to tell him, he a complete stranger. And he doesn't even know his name yet!

 

“My name is Ryuugazaki Rei. I've been working with the NASA for a couple of years now under Amakata Miho’s supervision.”

 

“Oh! So Miho made it to the top eventually!” he exclaims, as if he knew her from before. “I'm glad for her. How is she doing? Still living alone with her cat?”

 

“I...suppose?” Rei has no idea of how to break the news. The smile on the man’s face is brighter than the neon lights of the ceiling, he feels awful for breaking it.

 

“So you’ve never heard of this place before? Let me explain.”

 

The Iwatobi station had been built at the end of the 21th century, it is a 300m2 building with everything a man needs to live; most of the rooms are used to stock the food and the oxygen. There are two pressurisation rooms to prevent the building from collapsing since the entire building is filled with air contrary to the outside, where there is nothing but the silence and the void.

 

“Air contains 21% of oxygen. We need small bottle for the suits when we go outside and huge ones for the air in the rooms. I usually only fill two rooms to save in case something like that happens. All the food I have is dehydrated, and there's a urine purificator to recycle water but usually I get some soda with each refill.”

 

Rei stops listening as soon as the words “urine purificator” left the blond’s mouth.

 

“Usually a rocket comes each 6 months for the refill, but you've been late for three month! Hopefully I had some bottles left, but I had to stop feeding Gou for a while not to starve!”

 

“There...have been some issues…” Rei starts.

 

“I supposed that's why she tried to flee. I'm glad you found her. I don't know what I would have become, without her, without food, without oxygen…”

 

Rei watches his face, his cute pouts - the man can't be more than twenty, he thinks, not with a round face like that - and in his guts he can't find the courage to break the truth. How could he? No one taught him how to announce such news - just the end of the world.

 

“By the way, the name is Hazuki Nagisa,” the man says, offering his hands. Rei takes it by reflex, “Nice to meet you. It's funny how we both have girl’s name, don't you think? What a funny coincidence.”

 

Rei smiles warily, there's an uneasiness that forms into his guts when he listens to Nagisa’s words and while he doesn't quite get why it bothers him so much at first, the realisation is more devastating than the image of the comet destroying Earth. Nagisa Hazuki is a man, just like him. Miho mistook him for a girl when she read his name, that's why she chose Rei for this trip to the Moon, that's why she sacrificed her life. But Nagisa is a man, not a woman, and this changes everything.

 

Now he knows Amakata’s sacrifice had been vain, and that humanity will die.

 

‘ _Think, think, think_!’ they can hope some ovocytes banks will still be unharmed, they could use it to repopulate the earth- wait, no that wouldn't work, they need a uterus they need a woman!

 

“Are you alright?” Nagisa asks. He must have spaced out.

 

“Yes! Yes, why wouldn't I be?” he lies, poorly.

 

“Well...you're crying.”

 

Tears fall from his eyes and stay suspended in the air, floating in front of his face. There are so many things that change when there's no gravity. Rei hadn't realized he'd been crying. How anesthetic.

 

Gou has gone back on Nagisa’s shoulder, looking at him with sad eyes and a tear drawn on her belly. It's the best shot he will ever have, Rei realizes.

 

“We need to talk. Is there a place we can sit?”

 

 

It appears Nagisa had seen the comet, he has been following its route for a couple of weeks before Rei arrives. It never occurrs to him though that the comet is about to destroy everything on its way.

 

“And if the Earth is no more, because of my girly name humanity will be lost, forever,” he sobs; Rei can't look at him in the eyes, not when he looks so devastated.

 

“I...you mentioned Amakata sensei at some point, if you knew her how could she not remember you were a man?” Rei wonders, desperately trying to rewrite history.

 

To his surprise Nagisa laughs a bit, “Sorry, but, it's the way you call her...Miho was only a child when I met her, that's why she probably doesn't remember me. I don't think she actually knows my name, she was ten when I last saw her.”

 

“But that was fifteen years ago!”

 

“I know. Time flies...to think I've been here for more than ten years.”

 

“But...sorry for the intrusive question, but how old are you?”

 

“I don't know. I think I might be 32 or 33 or something. Time doesn't feel the same on the Moon.”

 

There is no clock on the Moon, no hour or day or night. Rei’s watch had stopped since he landed. Their only way of knowing how much time has passed is Earth since it spins on itself, and using the speed at which the Moon spins around the earth, each time Nagisa’s telescope catches the sight of Japan, he calls it a Moon day. Moon days are longer than Earth days, but that's the only way Nagisa has found to have temporal point of reference. Rei finds his eyelids falling on his eyes, he asks for a room to sleep, Nagisa shows him the way.

 

“There is only one bedroom opened with air, if you don't mind that.” Nagisa brings him a pillow and a blanket he had trouble holding into his arms - the pillow, mostly, likes to run from his grip and float haphazardly. “That way we might save more oxygen, since, if what you're saying is right, we will have to find a way to survive with only what is left in your rocket.”

 

The thought of dying by suffocation prevents him from sleeping the first couple of nights. Nagisa sleeps less, he notices, perhaps because he is used to live here. Rei still doesn't master how to properly walk with no gravity…

 

When he wakes up eventually Nagisa welcomes him with a smile when he walks to the lounge. “Hello!”

 

“Morning,” Rei mumbles.

 

“Well it's not properly morning but-”

 

“Do you have milk?”

 

Nagisa’s smile disappears, erased by Rei’s harsh tone. “There’s milk powder on the second drawer. Be careful of your water portion, it's hard at first, you don’t realize how much water you use a day when you have unlimited access.”

 

When he opens the cupboard Rei finds out, horrified, that they only have a couple of bottles left. How on earth- wait can he still says that now that he’s living on the Moon?

 

“500cc per day,” Nagisa tells him. “All included.”

 

“Showers included!?”

 

Nagisa sends him a warry smile. “You should forget about showers. We have dried soap and shampoo.”

 

Nagisa urges him to get ready so that they could go back to Rei’s rocket and see all the supplies they have left. Putting the suits again and going through the depressurisation rooms feels like a huge and endless hangover. Gou comes along, never leaving Nagisa’s shoulder.

 

“ _As you have experienced yesterday the radio doesn't function well when we adventure far from Iwatobi, so we need to settle the details aforehand. We go back to the rocket, make a list of everything you have brought with you and come back with what’s necessary. We might need to do a couple of come and goes but it's really important.”_

 

The trip back to the rocket feels shorter than the first time. Rei realizes when they arrive that he doesn't remember landing at all, nor the first minute of his presence on the Moon. Memories only start when he saw Nagisa coming for him after he walked on Gou. His rocket already looks like a wreck, a huge wreck indeed, but Rei really wonders if they will ever find victuals inside - yet he hopes so.

 

Nagisa seems to know exactly what to look for. He goes straight to the back of the rocket and opened a trap that Rei hadn't never seen before on other rockets. Inside they are boxes with QR code on their covers, that Nagisa scans with a device he has brought with him. They are also some papers and a letter, Rei notices, but Nagisa puts them aside to concentrate on the boxes. He takes 3 and motions Rei to do the same. Surprisingly the boxes are lighter than Rei imagined them to be. They walk back easily to Iwatobi.

 

“ _These boxes contain enough supplies for a week,”_ Nagisa tells him after the first load _. “I think we should take a couple of more and we'll be good for a month, then we can go back take the rest.”_

 

Everything went well until, after the third go, Rei has a sensation of déjà vu coming from his foot.

 

“I'm sorry! I think I stepped on Gou again!” he speaks, but Nagisa doesn't understand what he says - plus, Gou is right there on his shoulder.

 

Rei looks down at what is stick on his shoe; the shape and size are the same as Gou’s but that one is yellow. There's not doubt possible, it's another alien. When Rei picks him from the ground it tries to punch him with his tiny arms.

 

“ _Wo...gra...ei!”_

 

Nagisa looks delighted by the discovery but Rei struggles with the alien, which is quite a little bit more difficult than the cute and obedient Gou. It even sends him electric shock through its antenna! However the alien stops fighting when he sees Gou for the first time; he immediately calms down as a heart appears on its belly.

 

The four of them joined the base with the rest of the boxes and the yellow alien, quietly sitting on top of one pile, watching Gou with heart eyes.

 

* * *

 

 “How are we going to call him?”

 

Nagisa is watching the yellow alien while Rei puts the stuff into the cupboard. “How do you know it’s a boy? Maybe they don't have a sex.”

 

“But Gou is pink! She is cute! She has to be a girl!” Nagisa whines.

 

Rei won't comment on how this is very reductive of woman characteristics but chooses his right to remain silent. For a moment, Rei finds the aliens quite a distraction from the comet. They seem to communicate via their antenna and drawings on their bellies.  

 

“How about Momo?” Nagisa proposes.

 

“Who’s Momo?”

 

Nagisa points at the yellow alien, who seems to like his new name - there's a thumb up icon now on his belly - and smiles. “I'm so happy. There are two of them! Just like us!”

 

There is something sweet but sour in his mouth, as he watches Nagisa’s smile and enthusiasm. On the bottom on his heart he feels angry, because life, Earth, humanity is about to disappear and this man is just here smiling, oblivious to the nightmare that is about to happen. How can Nagisa still be smiling after the conversation they had the day before?

 

Without a word Rei leaves the lounge and puts back his suit to check the comet. Nagisa has a telescope on top of the Base from where he follows the stars’ trajectories, and recently the comet has been its only target. The comet shines brightly, its tail yellow and orange and red and purple. It is still coming for Earth, tragically.

 

Rei isn't hungry in front of the dehydrated food. He doesn't feel talkative either, contrary to Nagisa who must have accumulated a monstrous amount of daily words quota he never used because he was alone for ten years and decides to use it all during their first dinner.

 

“And you? Where are you coming from? Do you have brothers and sisters?”

 

That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Rei’s shoulders tense, thinking of his whole loving family who had stayed on Earth, awaiting their deaths.

 

“I have four sisters! All these women around me! My childhood had been a real hell. I've worn dresses more often than I'd like to admit…”

 

It's too much for Rei. Before tears float in front of his face and ruin the moment, he stands up and directly goes to the only other room filled with oxygen - so of course, he isn't very difficult to find and Nagisa runs after him like a lost puppy.

 

“Are you okay?” he asks, visibly upset which makes Rei even more furious.

 

“Well, yes! Why wouldn't I?” he replies with irony. “I've always dream to come here, to walk on the Moon, to see Earth from space so how lucky I am to finally reach my dream before it’s too late to do so because a comet is about to ravage it all, the whole planet and all the person I love that are still living on it!”

 

“I...Rei I-”

 

“So I am sorry, but I don't want to chat with you! I don't want to see your smiles, I don't understand them at all! I just want to be left alone for a bit, is it too much to ask!?”

 

Nagisa looks completely frozen, as if he has never expected Rei to shout so violently. He returns to the lounge without a word after a moment. Rei is glad, from the bottom of his heart. He falls on his bed and pretends to sleep for the next coming hours.

 

* * *

 

Sleeping is a bad idea, he realizes too late. Because sleep means dreams, and dreams can lead to nightmare. Except when life is the nightmare. Rei dreamed of his family, his friends, of Amakata sensei and when he opened his eyes they were red and itchy, again. The comet took everything from him and now, he was stuck on the Moon with and total stranger who didn't seem to care about the situation.

 

Nagisa isn't there when he comes back to the lounge. He eats a bit, petting mindlessly Gou’s head as she sleeps with Momo on the table and takes a look around, looking for something remotely interesting to do. He could go outside, walk on the Moon but he doesn't feel like he is in the mood to appreciate the experience. They are, he realizes, very few of Nagisa’s personal effects. There's a pingouin poster on the wall, a small sealed box - maybe the most interesting thing in the whole room - and, more surprising, a hair clip with a butterfly on it. And that was all. Twenty years on Earth and ten on the Moon, and Nagisa barely owns anything. What a life, he thinks.  Maybe he had been a little bit harsh on him. Life has already done a good job at that.

 

He finds him behind the telescope on the roof of the base. He’s looking at the comet.

 

“ _It's getting closer and closer_ …” He murmurs when he sees Rei has just joined him. “ _How many days until the impact_?”

 

“Earth days or Moon days?”

 

“ _I_ _doubt you knew what Moon days feel like before coming here, didn't you_?” Nagisa says, more seriously this time, which take Rei aback for a moment.

 

“...It was supposed to be a week when I left Earth...I’d say 5 days, at the most.”

 

“ _My sisters are living in Kyoto. Or maybe they have moved?”_ Nagisa says, out of the blue. “ _I don't know anymore, I haven't seen them in ten years and I very rarely get mail. They could be dead already, for all I know.”_

 

His tone is so different from the Nagisa he had known for the past few hours they have spent together. Rei starts to feel uneasy, out of place, feels like Nagisa has turned into a human bomb and is about to explode to his face, and that he has well earned it.

 

“ _You know, my first days moon the moon were horrible. I was all alone. I didn't know how much water or oxygen I would need, half of the Base hadn't been built at the time. I was wearing my spacesuit all the time. I couldn't find sleep until the fifth Moon day.”_ He tells Rei. “ _I spent all my time crying like a baby. I stopped eventually, one day, when I realized I couldn't recycle the tears. I almost die of dehydration because I ran out of water. The rescue team found me barely conscious, I hadn't eaten anything in weeks because I was too weak to walk and open the cupboard.”_

 

Rei remains still as a statue to his side, speechless. He doesn't know what the more unsettling,  Nagisa’s story or the lack of emotion in his voice.

 

“ _It happened once or twice after that, over all it took me a year to properly live on the Moon without risking my life.”_ Nagisa’s eyes leave the sky to look up at Rei. “ _I would have dreamed that someone was there to teach me how to live, to teach me the rules.”_

 

Rei knows where all of this is coming, he has never felt so pitiful.

 

“ _But you know that wasn't the worse. I was prepared for all that. What they didn't tell me was the silence. You have noticed too, I assume? The silence and the loneliness, that's what almost killed me in the end. I wasn't supposed to go alone so I never thought I...hopefully I found her.”_ He points at Gou, still hovering his shoulder. _“I would have gone crazy without her.”_

 

Rei can't find the word to console the man. There is absolutely nothing he can think of, because he cannot begin to imagine the living nightmare Nagisa had gone through, and alone.

 

“ _You can't even imagine how happy I was when I saw you. I thought ‘At long last!’ I was going to make a friend, after ten years. I was going to speak to someone who could understand me. So...I'm sorry...”_

 

_“_ You what?”

 

And Rei thought he had heard it all!

 

“ _I'm sorry! I was so enthusiastic to see another human being that I completely forgot how it feels to first walk on the Moon! It must be terrible for you! And I was being so joyful in this dark hour and you must have think I was a terrible person...but, you know Rei, I've stopped hoping for anything for a while. And then you arrived...so…”_

 

It takes Rei all his might not to hug him at that precise moment, but he isn't strong enough to bite back the tears. At this precise moment both of them are living in Hell and Nagisa is an angel.

 

“ _Eh!! Rei! Are you alright!?”_

 

Of course he is. There are going to be okay.

 

“I'll need to learn how to use less water, but at first I might need some help.” Rei sobs.

 

“ _It's okay I'll share some of mine with you_!”

 

To all the billions people in the world, Nagisa had to be the man on the Moon,  and Rei will never be thankful enough for that.

 

* * *

 

The next day Rei wakes up, serene. Acceptation is easier than excepted, but after all life on Earth is about to be reduce into dust and he is the sole human being, along with Nagisa, that will survive it. But, contrary to what Nagisa had thought until his arrival, as long as there is life, there will be hope.

 

“Hello!”

 

No one reply. Instead, Nagisa is sleeping on the table again, Gou in his arm. The box is open next to Nagisa’s head, it's full of letters and on top of it lays a picture. Curiosity takes the best of him, and even if Rei knows he shouldn't probably read someone else’s mails he digs into Nagisa’s secrets.

 

He looks at the picture first. It shows a woman in her mid twenties, with red hair tied in a high ponytail. She is smiling, making the V of victory with her fingers. Behind her there are trophies and a map of all the stars. She looks really friendly. All the letters are hers. There are all Gou’s.

 

Gou Matsuoka was Nagisa’s best friend. They had met in the NASA program and never left each other’s sight. She was supposed to be the woman on the moon. Each provision rocket came with a letter from her, telling news from his family and her, her own family, her husband and children, her brother…

 

Nagisa named the first living form he had met on the Moon after her.

 

* * *

 

When Nagisa wakes up the letters have found back their place, but Gou is nowhere to be find. He starts to panic.  Where did she go? He soon finds out, as he hears noise of metal hitting metal on the restroom. Rei is working on something, knelt with Gou and Momo handing him small tools with their tiny arms.

 

“It's a wave transmitter, as well as a translator, if I succeed.” He tells him. Nagisa listens to him in awe. “I hope you don't mind, I found your tools while exploring the base. I realized the aliens were communicating through their antennas, and it seems I found a resonance while you were sleeping. Maybe it won't be conclusive but first I can transform their language into sound and then, maybe we can try some words. Like, cookie?”

 

A heart appears on Gou’s belly, she looks delighted. There's no doubt she understands human language by now, but Momo isn't yet and so she translates. Rei sees the waves on his transmitter and motions Nagisa closer, “See?”

 

There are stars in his eyes, more than in the cloudless sky. “Awesome! Rei it's fantastic !! We’ll be able to communicate !! You have no idea of how happy I am!!”

 

The joy on his face is the best recompense he can ask for.

 

“Oh and, by the way, I think these two eats Moon rocks.” He informs Nagisa. “I've seen Momo trying to seduce Gou and brought her a lot of these.”

 

There is a pile of white rocks next to Rei’s transmitter. When Nagisa takes one into his hand he's immediately attacked by the yellow alien while Gou tries to stop him.

 

“See? You're stealing his stuff. He probably thinks you want to court Gou now.” Rei mocks him. Nagisa’s reaction is priceless. He looks honestly so sorry.

 

They have a good day. They laugh and eat and drink, they walk on the Moon for a couple of hours before their feet get them back to the telescope.

 

The comet is only a thousand of kilometres away.

 

“It's getting faster…” Rei murmurs in the radio, he doesn't mean Nagisa to hear it, doesn't want to worry him but the impact will occur sooner than they think. He can't keep the picture of Gou Matsuoka out of his mind, how well conserved it was, how deeply Nagisa must love her, and how closely she’s to die. He doesn't want to see anything else but smiles on his face now. He had realized that yesterday. Nagisa’s smiles are the only things that had smooth something inside him since he landed on the Moon.

 

“ _Rei, there is something I need to show you_.”

 

Rei leaves the telescope and the comet flashing light to gaze at Nagisa’s serious face.

 

“ _Not here, not now. I need to open the air to this room before we can go there. Tomorrow I'll show you_.”

 

Rei works on the translator until the next Moon day comes, not knowing if he's excited to see what Nagisa wants to show him or if he dreads the moment Earth will be destroyed. He cannot stop time, he realizes, but he make sure the precious time he has left is used purposefully. He cannot waste anymore seconds, and worrying about something he has no power on is irremediably unproductive.

 

Momo brings another Moon rock to Gou, who ignores it, her eyes set on Rei and his machine. It's funny how she almost understands everything Rei does.

 

“So, I think it's almost done. Gou, can you try to speak to me?”

 

From the two alien she is by far the most intelligent, and she has spent a long time with Nagisa - who probably spoke non stop - so he hopes she can understand what he asks her.

 

The first try is a failure. It's a first for Rei, but no one can be perfect. He'll try harder the second time.

 

“Rei?”

 

Nagisa calls him from the lounge.

 

“It's ready.”

 

He brings him to the room in front of the restroom. The lights appears as soon as Nagisa enters; the room is gigantic, in the middle lays a huge machine, looking like a part of a small rocket.

 

“The idea has always been the same, they always intended us to come back.” Nagisa walks to the centre of the room, pats the wild structure a couple of time and smiles. “I've been working on this for years until I stopped hoping. But now that you are here I find motivation again.”

 

Rei couldn't believe his eyes. “How could you build half a rocket on the Moon!?”

 

“I used some piece of my own rocket.” Nagisa explains. “Plus I had a plan, and with each refill I got more pieces. It took me a couple of years to make this but I'm sure, with your help and what we’ve got on your rocket, we could finish to build it before our supplies run out.”

 

“We’re building our way out…”

 

They are going to get out of here. After the winter impact, they will go back home, no matter what.

 

* * *

 

 

Another Moon day passes. The impact is imminent.

 

Yet Rei spends all his time with Gou and Momo, and the transmitter. His effort were rewarded a couple of hours ago when, at last, he had managed to transform Gou’s waves into sound. Too bad Nagisa hadn't been with them at the moment, he had missed Gou’s first words...well, rather than words they were mere sounds.

 

‘ _zyptougythioup_!’

 

This is, apparently, how Gou calls a cookie.

 

Rei makes her repeat a couple of more time before the translator program finally manages to work.

 

‘... _cookies_!’

 

Even Gou seems to recognize the word. She jumps and takes Momo in her arms. ‘ _Therustekpack cookie dawatheppick_!!!!’

 

‘ _ziroup zieh attrick therust_!' Momo replies.

 

‘ _Yig! Therusttepack_!’

 

Gou hits Momo on the head. They must be fighting over something. Maybe in a few hours they will find out why. Rei is so excited! He can't wait to tell Nagisa, and he knows where he is at the moment.

 

Nagisa is on top of the Base, watching over Earth and the comet. He isn't standing behind the telescope though, because the comet is so close that it can be seen with bare eyes. Time has come.

 

“ _Is this...is this really happening?”_ Rei barely hears his voice in his helmet, strangled with tears and despair. “ _Are we...I mean this is so real_.”

 

Rei can't say a word; he stands immobile, mesmerised by the deadly beauty that is flying above them, heading towards Earth fatally. It flies so close to the Moon’s surface. It's Death, Rei thinks at that moment, majestic and ultimate Death, advancing with nothing to stop it. The comet is bright and big, impossible to look at for more than a few seconds despite their helmet before turning blind.

 

They decide to go back inside. Rei almost forgot what he wanted to show Nagisa. He hopes the translator had made more progress so it can lighten the mood and make Nagisa smiles again. He misses his communicative energy.

 

‘ _Foukprost! Welcome back! Risktrouch happy see you!’_

 

Nagisa takes Gou’s up in the air and makes it swirl, all the while avoiding to step on Momo’s Who’s trying to claim back his Gou. ‘ _Put down put down! Osrick!’_ He says, and Rei gets the feeling the last word is an insult even the translator can't find an equivalence for. Nonetheless Nagisa brings Gou to his face and they share a hug.

 

“I'm so happy we can finally talk! I have so many things to say!”

 

‘ _Thank you!’_ Gou says. ‘ _Thank you thank you thank you!’_

 

Rei can see Nagisa’s lips tremble with emotion. His eyes get reddened.

 

‘Y _ou are my saspricksho_ ’

 

Gou looks at the translator, giving it a dark glance. ‘ _Saspricksho_!’ she repeats.

 

‘ _No word ploutchyt Saspricksho truck yish human language.’_ Momo tells them.

 

“I think it means there is no equivalence for the word you try to say,” Rei explains to Gou. “Can you try to find something similar?”

 

Gou seems to nod, and think hard for another word, her eyes on Nagisa. ‘... _friend_ .’ she says eventually, ‘ _You are my best friend_!’

 

“Yes! Yes you are!” Nagisa sobs, holding Gou closer to his face. “You are my best friend too.”

 

They seem so happy that Rei can only stare; he spots Momo giving him an apologetic look but he chooses to ignore it. They don't have their place here. It's a privilege moment between two old friends who are sharing their first words together after such a long time.

 

They only stop when the light suddenly goes out. Before they have time to think, the ground starts to shake. The comet is passing just next to the Moon. It's time, they realize. They put the space suit and run to the depressurisation pods, hoping they won't be too late. The end of the world, they are going to be the only persons to experience it from the outside.

 

Rei can't stop thinking about his family, about Amakata sensei. She should have been here in his shoes. He thinks about Gou, the human one, with her children and family. He thinks of Nagisa’s sisters and of all the masses, millions and billions of humans that must be staring at the sky, right now, watching powerless as Death falls upon them all.

 

They reach the top of the Base and sit next to the telescope. From here they can see very precisely what and how it's going to happen. From then, Rei can't think of anything, his mind his blank of words and thoughts. There's nothing, like the void they are living in.

 

Well, not entirely. There is Nagisa, and his hands, grasping his harshly.

 

“ _I have to tell you, Rei. From the billions human that lived on Earth, I am glad that they sent you.”_

 

It happens seconds before the comet collides with Earth. Nagisa fixs the horizon, the impact and the soundless explosion in front of their eyes, while Rei can't take his eyes off of him. There's something warmth that bursts in his chest and aches at the same time. Rei is happy, happy that Nagisa says this but also happy that Nagisa _is_ Nagisa, happy that he is the man on the moon.

 

* * *

 

They spend an hour watching the dying Earth. Half of the United States has been ripped out of the surface. The planet isn't blue anymore, the sky is covered with grey dust. Earth won't see the sun rays until months, maybe years. This is over. Humanity has lost.

 

Not entirely though, because Nagisa and Rei are still living, and determined to make it rise from the ashes once more.

 

As they are working on the rocket restlessly Rei and Nagisa are interrupted by Gou. Momo is holding the transmitter on his back.

 

‘ _Best friend and glasses, follow us.’_

 

Nagisa puts his tools down, stands before Rei can object on the ‘Glasses’ denomination. Gou takes them to the where their suits are. “Do you want to go outside again?” Nagisa asks.

 

‘ _Queen is waiting_.’

 

Queen? Rei frowns suspiciously and sends a glance to Nagisa, you shrugs. None of them know what is Gou talking about. They follow her outside anyway.

 

As they get out of Iwatobi what strike them first is the purple light. It's blinding and intense, forbidding them to see the evidence that lies in front of their eyes. Rei looks at the ground, and sees Gou and Momo moving forward.

 

‘ _Queen Queen Queen_!’ Momo sings. Gou hits his head and stops, waiting for Nagisa and Rei.

 

‘ _This path.’_

 

As their eyes adjust to the light Rei gasps. In front of them there is a space saucer with a giant jelly purple alien waiting for them.

 

“ _That must be Queen_.” Nagisa says.

 

‘ _It's to thank you for saving us.’_ Gou explains. ‘ _I_ _ask our Queen to take us with you by using the transmitter to increase the signal. We have air and oxygen and food you can eat in our planet.’_

 

“You're taking us...to your planet??” Rei can't believe it! Are they going to...travel...through space? And see other aliens??

 

‘ _Only if you want to. You can go where you want. We’ll provide you anything you want. It's to thank you for watching over me, Best friend, and to permit us to communicate with you, Glasses.’_

 

Both humans stand speechless. Never they could have imagine things will turn out to be like this. Both of them, travelling into space?? But what about humanity??

 

“Nagisa...what shall we do?” Rei asks. His mind shouts not to let humanity down, he thinks of Amakata and all she did for him but his heart, craving for adventure and new knowledge, is dying to follow the aliens. Space travelling! What can ever beat that!

 

“ _...you want to go, right_?” Nagisa replies.

 

Rei can't answer, torn between his loyalty to humanity and his thrust for the unknown.

 

Nagisa takes his hand, and smiles. _“Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go, Rei!”_

 

Nagisa only asks to take Gou’s picture with him. Their last steps on the Moon feel lighter than their first. Their hearts, as well, filled with something they could have only found there, something precious that was born between them. Whatever will happen they will be together, and Rei has the feeling that if they had faced the end of their world together then nothing could stop them.

 

The moment they step inside the alien spaceship the man on the Moon become the men of space.

 

For sure, one day, they will come back.

 

But for now, their lives know no border, their lives will be full of stars and planets and new species to discover.

 

Together.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to think of all the difference there are between the Moon and Earth's dailylife but I'm sure I missed some. How about water and oxygen? That was my biggest interrogation ! Anyway the whole fic was kind of inspired by Virtual Last Resort which is a 3DS game I really loved. 
> 
> I'd life to see these dorks on their adventure into space so if anyone feels the need to write a sequel just go for it I'll be honoured XD
> 
> Have a great Xmas, lots of love for you :)
> 
> QUeenie


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